It is said that social networks encourage the circulation of false news or disinformation, but we could also defend another point of view. Discourses advocating better media literacy are flourishing on digital platforms. All over the web, content creators focus our attention on the context of the messages sent and the ideologies that run through them. A segment of the population is then becoming more and more critical of the media.
This changing relationship is all the more visible as it recently colored the highly publicized separation of American musician Joe Jonas and British actress Sophie Turner, a soap opera that has been shaking the Internet for several weeks.
In the days following Jonas’ divorce request, a real communications operation seems to have been launched by his team. The American and British tabloids were quick to relay the statements of “sources close to the singer” portraying Sophie Turner as a party girl and an absentee mother.
After this “mom-shaming”, the American media TMZ went so far as to publish a series of photos taken “on the spot” where we see Jonas in “dad mode”, eating with his daughters in a restaurant. All possible means therefore seem to have been deployed to consolidate his image as an irreproachable father. But since when has it been exceptional for a father to take care of his children?
We would have expected to see the wrath of the web fall on Sophie Turner, but no! Many Internet users have rather strongly criticized the media treatment reserved for the actress and they even accused her ex of having orchestrated a smear campaign against her.
According to journalist Kate Lindsay, this change of direction is partly due to social media, and particularly to TikTok, which she considers as a place of education on the world of celebrities and on the mechanics of public relations. “ [Ça] means that the general public is better able to detect instances where they are being misled or when attempts are being made to sweep the dust under the rug,” she writes1.
Thanks to TikTokers who take the side of dissecting pop culture and introducing us to media theory, many Internet users now know that highly publicized arguments like that of Jonas and Turner involve more than two people: very often, professionals are hired to guide public opinion, which they can manipulate in particular with the help of certain media.
It seems that a better understanding of these strategies allowed us to see that the bias against the actress emanated from a failed communication operation, but also from a form of endemic sexism which pushes us to judge the parental skills of mothers.
For those who are said to be “chronically online” like me, this turnaround is refreshing, but not all that surprising. In fact, spending your time on social networks often amounts to consuming an enormous amount of metadiscourse, that is to say content created on the periphery of mass media and relating specifically to the study and analysis of the discourse conveyed by these media.
Every week, for example, I listen to the podcast The stringswhich dissects reality TV Double occupation. The multiplatform community of Les Ficelles comments on the content of the show, the ideologies that run through it and the choices made by the production. To flesh out their analyses, the girls draw on numerous disciplines, such as psychology, sociology and even feminist studies.
I must say that this type of content sometimes seems more interesting to me than the one he studies, because this metadiscourse meets the requirements of an audience who wants their intelligence to be honored. It also allows us to join a conversation, or even a community, and participate in it. Besides, that’s precisely what the social web is: a place where we combine our media consumption with content production.
In a world where our digital presence makes us hypervisible, perfecting our media education is also an essential asset, a real survival strategy.
To minimally control our image, we no longer really have the choice of acquiring basic media literacy. And when it comes to communications, let’s admit that some people are more skilled than others.
Thus, Sophie Turner recently made two notable public appearances on the arm of one of the queens of pop, Taylor Swift. If the bold gesture conveys a strong image of female solidarity, it also reminds us that Swift herself was left by Jonas in 2008, during a phone call. In the photos of the two women circulating on the web, we see them suppressing a smile. Their amused faces fascinate me, because it almost seems as if they are winking at us. Yes, it is a communication operation, but instead of hiding it from us, the two stars invite us to become their accomplices… and to participate.